Visitors need to be received and welcomed in a business environment and most businesses employ one or more dedicated receptionists to meet and greet visitors and to facilitate their visit by providing them with directions, delivering requested information to visitors and serving as a “gatekeeper” to the business. When a visitor arrives, the receptionist typically queries the visitor about the purpose of their visit; examines and validates the visitor's credentials to establish identity; establishes the visitor's status and decides to allow or disallow the visit; registers an allowed visitor by logging identity data in some form or fashion; notifies the visitor's host/destination of the visitor's arrival; provides directives to the visitor to complete the visit either by providing directions to the host, destination or visiting venue, advising as to how the visit will occur and transpire; opens or removes any physical barrier to the entry (e.g., opening a locked entrance or raising a barrier preventing entry of the visitor to the access-controlled environment); receives and/or delivers goods, packages, etc. that the visitor is there to deliver or pick up; provides information about the business and/or the visit in a variety of ways (e.g., publications, printed materials, electronic presentations, etc.). In many situations, visitors arrive at an environment (e.g., a campus, building, parking lot) in a vehicle. The environment may have restrictions, allowing only certain vehicles to enter. For example a military base may only allow registered vehicles belonging to the military and/or to military personnel that have necessary documentation and clearances to enter the environment. Occasionally, there are requirements for processing, registering, and allowing other vehicles on a short-term or long-term basis into the environment. Visitors seeking access to an environment may have to register themselves individually as well as registering a vehicle to enter the environment and may be monitored during their presence in the environment. Specific needs pertaining to security requirements of an environment govern such processes, procedures, and policies. In the current security environment, such requirements are more critical and must be implemented and enforced consistently, thoroughly and unemotionally. Embodiments of visitor management systems, access control systems, visitor monitoring systems and the like disclosed and claimed herein fulfill one or more needs in this art, and provide a variety of reception, security, and access-control functions using consolidation of business and security approaches and delivering those through one or more virtualization appliances, methods, and processes.